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special effects guys underneath them, pitching the floor every which way. It was nofhing compared with thePhoenix right now! They had to get out of here! They could beat this storm no matter what Radford said! All they needed was some sail
    Crouching low, he dashed astern through the rain and spray, steadying himself with an arm on the cabin top. He peered around the corner and set his eyes on the instrument panel behind the wheel. Six, maybe seven feet away. He’d be seen, but by then it would be too late —if he could keep from falling flat on his face!
    Counting silently — one, two, fhree! — he launched himself past the captain and reached for the mechanism that raised the mainsail.
    Luke hit him at hip height, diving like a linebacker. The two of them fell hard to the slick deck.
    “What the — ?” The captain spun around to face them. “What are you doing here, crewmen? Get yourselves below!”
    “You lunatic!” Luke rasped at J.J. “You’ll get us all killed!”
    “I know what I’m doing!” JJ. insisted frantically. He lunged for the panel, but Luke grabbed him once more.
    “Archie!” Radford struggled onto the scene. The beam of his flashlight captured Luke and JJ. locked in a wrestling match.
    “Break it up!” ordered Cascadden. He unhooked his safety harness and stepped between the two combatants, separating them with a heave of his powerful arms.
    The schooner lurched suddenly, and JJ. was tossed off his feet. The deck wash had him, was about to sweep him awqy. In a single motion, Captain Cascadden clamped his right hand onto JJ.‘s wrist and reached back with the left, groping for something, anything, to hold on to. His fingers closed on the side of the instrument panel and gripped hard. His palm pressed against a small button.
    The roar of the waves covered the mechanical clunk as the mainsail began to rise automatically.
    Radford ran over, and he and the captain set JJ. back up on his feet.
    “Captain!” Luke spotted the white canvas flapping wildly as it rose from its boom. “The sail!”
    Captain and mate turned just as the fifty-knot wind filled the half-open mainsail with an overpowering force.
    It was as if the whole world suddenly tilted ninety degrees. The sixty-foot boat was blown all the way over on its side, its masts barely out of the water. Radford grabbed the mainsheet, which now extended over his head like monkey bars. The captain hung on to JJ. and the instrument panel.
    The next thing Luke knew, he was moving, falling parallel to the deck. Only the gunwale — eighteen inches of wood — stood between him and a violent ocean.
    Wham! He bounced off like a Ping-Pong ball, snatching wildly for the lifeline. He felt the wire in his hands and held on, his feet dragging in the water.
    “Archie!” Radford called. “Lock your harness on the lifeline!”
    “I can’t!” he tried to answer, but a torrent of sea and spray found his throat. He came up choking.
    Waves crashed over the twin masts. The automatic halyard winch ground to a halt.
    The captain secured JJ.‘s safety belt around the wheel stand. Then he hit the button to lower the mainsail.
    Nothing happened.
    “No power to the winch!” howled Radford. “I’ll have to lower it manually!”
    Like Tarzan moving from vine to vine, the mate grabbed the halyard and swung over. He hung there, trying to use his full weight to pull the sail down. “Too much blow, skipper!” he called. “I can’t budge it!”
    “Take the helm, crewman!” the captain ordered J.J. He heaved himself up on the side of the cabin top to make his way over to the mate.
    Clinging to the wire at the starboard gunwale, Luke was the first to see the great wave. It was enormous — a forty-footer — curling over the high side of thePhoenix like a giant hand about to crush the small ship.
    He shouted, “Captain — !”
    And then the monster broke. To Luke it seemed like Niagara Falls raging down the upturned deck toward him.
    Crack!
    The mainmast snapped